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Science-fiction classics that have rewired your brain

20 May 2011

Once a niche pursuit, science fiction is now a global phenomenon. The British Library in London delves into its history and significance in its new exhibition, Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it. As these examples show, science fiction’s alternate worlds force us to look at our own anew.

Time machine

H. G. Wells may have coined the term "time machine", but the Spanish diplomat Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau beat him to the concept by eight years.

In a light opera called El Anacronópete, published in 1887, he told the story of a group of characters who travel back in time in a cast-iron box. The box's designer grows ever more obsessive, eventually taking it all the way back to the dawn of time – in search of the secret of immortality.

Wells's The Time Machine followed in 1895.

(Image: British Library Board)

Invaders from Mars

Wells was also the author one of the earliest classics of modern science fiction, The War of the Worlds, which was first published in Pearson's Magazine in 1897. The story of an overwhelming Martian invasion of Earth and the narrator's desperate attempts to survive it has been immensely influential.

Wells was taught by Thomas Henry Huxley, known as "Darwin's bulldog" for his robust defence of the theory of evolution. The novel reflects Huxley's influence, depicting the invasion as a battle between two competing species.

Although the book has been filmed several times, no adaptation has managed to capture both its atmosphere and its themes.

This illustration, by Henrique Alvim Corrêa, is from a 1906 Belgian edition.

(Image: British Library Board)

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Tunes from Mars

Taking a completely different attitude to Martians, Raymond Taylor's marching tune A Signal from Mars is jaunty in the extreme.

Published in 1901, the piece became immensely popular but has little to do with its title. You can listen to it on the Creeps Records blog.

Observant readers may notice that the piece was arranged by E. T. Paull. It's not a joke: Edward Taylor Paull was a successful composer, arranger and publisher of music.

(Image: British Library Board)

Dark future

Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is an early example of one of science fiction's most enduring tropes: the futuristic dystopia.

In We, people are referred to by numbers only, wear identical uniforms and are slaves to the state – which can spy on everything they do because all buildings are made of glass.

Written in the years following the Russian revolution, it implicitly criticises the way socialism morphed into totalitarianism. George Orwell read it shortly before beginning work on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

This image is the cover of a Polish edition from 1985. It is a samizdat: the book was illegal in the Soviet Union and could not be published, so people made their own copies – like this one – and passed them on.

(Image: Supernowa Publishing)

On the news stand

Amazing Stories was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction.

Launched in 1926, it was immensely influential in its early years but ran into major problems in the 1940s when it began publishing the Shaver mystery – stories of a malign ancient civilisation that lived underground and menaced humanity – as fact.

It recovered and continued for many decades, but went into a long decline from the 1970s onwards and published its last issue in 2005.

This cover from April 1928 was designed by famous science-fiction artist Frank R. Paul.

(Image: estate of Frank R. Paul)

Time travel trouble

Time travel Trouble

False encyclopaedia

The Codex Seraphinianus is part science fiction, part surrealist artwork.

Created by the artist, architect and designer Luigi Serafini, it is an encyclopaedia of a fictional world. Its eleven chapters describe the physics, biology, history and culture of an imagined universe.

It took Serafini nearly three years to complete. He illustrated it himself, often parodying objects and animals from the real world.